On Wednesday, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev highlighted the significance of the country’s National Projects, saying that he saw the program as "a blueprint for Russia’s future", TASS reported.

"The National Projects have become one of the fundamental instruments. In a way, they are ‘a blueprint for Russia’s future’," the prime minister said in his address to the nation’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, reporting on the performance of his cabinet in 2018.

The prime minister reiterated that Russia’s National Projects had to be drafted in just a few months, underscoring the government’s immense responsibility for the outcome of this endeavor.

The tasks assigned to the country in 2018 are "distinct in their scope and the depth of transformations". Medvedev said he was referring to nine national development goals set forth in the May decrees, and the 12 National Projects worth almost 26 trillion rubles ($406.5 billion). "But most of all it’s the 146.8 million people for whose sake, and together with whom, we are doing all this," the prime minister stressed.

He said that the main trajectories in the government’s activity, the budget, state programs and the daily routine activities of the executive, legislative and regional branches of authority had been adjusted to meet the national development goals.